Los Angeles daily herald., 1887-09-25
FAVORED BY FORTUNE.
A Hotel Porter Falls Heir to a
LaFge Estate.

The biggest sensation the little town
of Gloucester has known for many
years was sprung on its quiet inhab-
itants to-day sin the announcement
that John Anderson, resident of the
place, had received cable dispatch
from Copenhagen that his mother had
just died, leaving him heir to an estate
of 100000. Gloucester is a fishing
town down the Delaware with repu-
tation for shad that is not rivaled by
that of any other place in the East.
During the shad season it is the Mecca
of lovers of that toothsome fish, and
Landlord Thompson's planked-shad
dinners are fond memory in the
minds OF hosts of epicures who made
frequent trips down the river during
the early months of the present
summer.
With the visitors at Thompson's
there was no more popular attache Of
the place than a quiet, good-looking,
well-behaved young fellow named
John Anderson. He is the same man
who to-day received the startling dis
patch that has set many u tongue in
Gloucester wagging and led to his in
stantaneous resignation of the place
he has held since last spring. Two
hours after he got the telegram he
was spinning over to New York,
where he intends to take steerage pas
sage in a steamer that leaves for
Europe tomorrow.
Anderson was drawing six beers
when a telegraph messenger walked
into the bar-room of Thompson's this
morning and handed him dispatch.
He was in such hurry that he got
ex-Mayor Wyncoop, who was leaning
against the bar, to read it to him. AS
soon as he heard the last word he let
the six glasses fall with crash,
leaped over the bar and executed a
wild dance. Then he hurried to his
employer and resigned. The people
of Gloucester and those who went from
Philadelphia to escape the drought
of Sunday in Philadelphia that be-
gan with Mayor Filters strict enforce
ment of the Sunday law, never looked
on Anderson as man with any ro-
nance in him. Yet he was full of ro-
nance. The steady-looking, mild
hammered young man, who talked
commonplace with Teutonic accent,
himself SO short in stature that the
high bar hid all but his Danish blue
eyes and his fair hair and beard, said
little OF his past history and nothing
of the wealth which he knew must, in
the natural course of things, come to
himself.
Boniface Thompson, as the summer
went on, looked once in a while at his
bartender, whom he engaged only two
months ago, and thought that he had
got a pretty steady-going man. Once
in while Anderson would grow COM
municative and tell his employer a
little OF his past. A Dane by birth,
Anderson's father was educated in
Paris and gained Il commission in the
French army. He followed the for
tunes OF Napoleon l II and was rewarded
for his service by being made Briga-
dier in the Imperial army. Young
Anderson's education had been mill
tary, and he was a Lieutenant of Cav
airy when the Franco-Prussian war
broke out. Both father and son were
in several battles of that disastrous
war, and when the Emperor left
France forever they returned to Co
penhagen.
Young Anderson grew restive in his
native land. He said little of the rea-
SONS which sent him from luxury at
home to struggles abroad, but he let
it be inferred that political reasons
drove him from home. He worked,
as he says, at anything he could get
when he reached America. He has
tended bar, shoveled snow, helped at
laying the Steventh avenue conduit
for the electrical subway in New York,
RATED logs ON the Delaware, drove
mules on the Erie canal, served
milk route in Jersey City, handled
freight little during the big strike of
last spring, was "supe," with half a
dozen lines to speak, in a spectacular
show, was conductor ON a Brooklyn
street-car, went to Chicago and helped
load some of Phil Armour's refriger-
ator cars, and worked at no end Of
other employments. He claims to be
member of the family made noted
by simple Hans Anderson and his
genial tale of Danish folklore. Phil
adelphia correspondent Globe-Demo-
crat.